


In His Defense, They're Really Close Together

by 192Os



Category: EVE Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-09-20 18:53:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17028123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/192Os/pseuds/192Os
Summary: A Titan engineer looks upon his work and reflects.





	In His Defense, They're Really Close Together

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Instruments of Destruction](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/440871) by alexanderwales. 



I've heard it said that Titans used to be the stuff of legends; if you think about it, old references to them do sound like fairy tales. Ships the size of cities roaming the distant reaches of space, snuffing out entire fleets in their wake, ferrying emperors and sultans and CEOs in absolute safety through the deadliest interstellar voids - these were the things that explorers spent their lives trying to find, and that civilizations bankrupted themselves to build.

But New Eden's seen too much change in the past decade or two. Titans went from elusive tools of the wealthy, to prized fleet flagships, to a necessity in every emerging alliance, to expendable craft tossed away by the dozens over sovereignty battles. My line of supercapital work's gotten more reliable, for sure; you don't have to go three jumps before you see some upstart capsuleer corp asking for engineers and workers for whatever grand new project they've got going. Finding the job's only half the story, though. The pay's fantastic, but the hours and project specs are... far from it.

The Sigma Octantis Alliance contracted out my company for an Avatar-class two months ago. They led us to their Sotiyo, dropped us off with a hangar full of components - jump drive parts, turret mountings, the works - and told us to get started. It turned out that they didn't even have all of the required parts to fix this together; we spend a good portion of the first week calling up all of our _own_ contractors around the cluster to try to ship us the tritanium and mexallon we needed to get the structural pieces machined. I don't plan on asking which systems that stuff was sourced from, or how many crew members died on whichever of their mining ships got ambushed, or how many slave workers at the refineries they needed to torture to get their quotas out. All I knew at the time is that we were in trouble if we didn't have the Avatar done exactly on schedule, and all I really care about now, as I'm sitting here above the hangar watching the Titan disconnect from its supports and fly outside, is making sure I get paid and then get the hell out of here.

We had our ups and our downs; the engineering team had our days of panic when another clone vat exploded and we had to check the others for defects, and our moments of relief upon getting a new shipment on time or a hull component in place a few hours early. And I don't really know how, but it got done. It's over. Another victory for Cepheus Prime Construction, another satisfied customer - and another chance for me to go home and get some well-deserved time off.

As I'm writing this down, I can see the Titan clear the station's shields. The fresh new capsuleers in their frigs are all spiraling around the thing as it moves, and some of the cargo ships passing by are throwing off fireworks. We had the thing stored in the Sotiyo for a few days, but it finally seems like they need it for something now. SOA's nifty new tool is getting taken out for a spin, I guess; there's a big cluster of battleships gathering a few hundred klicks off the station for some kind of fleet movement. I'm not sure if this is their take at a pipebomb or some armor-tanking group or whatever-the-hell these capsuleer guys are up to nowadays, but on the other hand, I don't actually care that much. The whole display looks pretty, and that should be about it.

The Titan's charging something up now. Light is concentrating on its end in that classic red vortex; I think they have the cyno on the other end ready to go. Any moment now... okay, there's the flash... 

...

...oh for _fuck's sake._

The dumbfuck hit "jump" instead of "bridge", didn't he?


End file.
